Two teenagers who filed an appeal to have their jail term revoked or revised after they had been found guilty of being partners in crime in regard to the rape of a 14-year-old Swede five years ago, had their two-year jail term reduced to a suspended sentence and supervision order.

The teenagers, whose names cannot be published since they were only 16 and 17 years old respectively at the time of the incident, had been found guilty of assisting another teenager that had raped and corrupted the girl in Dragonara Bay, St Julian’s on 27 June 2002.

Together with the other boy, they had attacked the girl’s Maltese boyfriend while they were together on the beach. The two boys then held the girl from her shoulders, while the third boy raped her.

The Court of Criminal Appeal upheld the men’s request to change their punishment, applying an article of the Criminal Code different from the one applied by the previous court.

The first court had applied Article 45 of the Criminal Code, which states: “Where two or more persons take part in the commission of a crime, any act committed by any of such persons, whether he be a principal or an accomplice, which may aggravate the crime, shall only be imputable to: the person who commits the act, the person with whose previous knowledge the act is committed and the person who, being aware of the act at the moment of its commission, and having the power to prevent it, does not do so.”

The court found that this article was not applicable to the appellants’ case, since the Attorney General had not made any reference to the article regarding aggravated circumstances.

The appellants’ otherwise-clean criminal record was also taken into consideration and they were given a two-year jail term suspended for four, as well as a supervision order for four years.

The court was presided over by Mr Justice David Scicluna.